


Endgame

by the_moonmoth



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Alpha Males, Dirty Talk, F/M, First Time, Happy Ending, Loss of Virginity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-20
Updated: 2012-02-08
Packaged: 2017-10-29 20:53:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/324061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_moonmoth/pseuds/the_moonmoth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Always remember your endgame</i>, Petyr was fond of saying, though she had never seen him play cyvasse.</p><p> </p><p> <b>Warning for Sansa/Petyr non-con kissing and touching.</b></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Utter filth, aka, I can't believe I had so many wordies for what was supposed to be a PWP! Written for the [3rd comment fic meme](http://sansaxsandor.livejournal.com/309240.html) at the sansaxsandor community over on LJ, for the prompt "Sansa has had it with Littlefinger, and decides to eradicate her maidenhead to mess with his carefully laid plans." I _may_ have got a tad self-indulgent. What can I say? *g* My thanks to ownsariver for checking over the ending.
> 
> Comments feed the author :)

After the silence of the Quiet Isle, Gulltown might as well have been King's Landing. Sandor Clegane glanced around the busy harbour from beneath his cowl, squinting against the harsh rays of the setting sun, before picking a direction and walking. Wine and a woman, that was what he wanted, the Stranger take the man who would get in his way.

*

Alayne Stone smiled politely at the whores and took her seat on an upholstered chair beside her father.

"Two of the finest," Lord Petyr said, leaning close to her ear so that his breath brushed a tendril of her hair against her neck, and Alayne stifled a shudder. "I prefer to train my whores myself, of course, but there is really little left to teach these two."

The Gulltown whorehouse was one of his latest acquisitions, and they were here because he wanted her to learn the ins and outs of this... business. _Men will always want whores, sweetling. That secret place between their legs is as good a goldmine as those under Casterly Rock._ And so Alayne hid her nervousness and sense of distaste at the spectacle he was about to put on for her, and attempted to think of something to say.

"I did not know men could be whores, father," she murmured back.

Petyr laughed quietly, and touched her cheek lightly with a finger. "Not all men's tastes run to a woman's charms," he said, "and I have always prided myself in catering to the broadest range of appetites."

At first Alayne did not understand what he meant, but then she remembered Randa's bawdy innuendo about young Ser Fredrick and his lack of interest in her advances, and comprehension dawned. "I suppose even men... such as that... have gold to spend as well," she said haltingly, wondering if she did indeed have the right of it, relaxing when her father smiled approvingly.

"Well said, Alayne. You are quite right."

At Lord Petyr's signal the two whores undressed. The man was of middling height, though taller than Lord Petyr, slender with dark hair and a comely face. The woman was older than her companion, with strong features though she was still attractive, long blonde hair falling to her waist. The couple began to kiss and caress, and Alayne forced herself not to look away in embarrassment. 

She had seen animals rutting, of course, and one could not remain friends with Myranda Royce for long without receiving an extensive education in the private actions of men and women. Yet Alayne's father had always been very clear on the fact that she must keep her maidenhead intact. _Always remember your endgame_ , he was fond of saying, though she had never seen him play cyvasse. He wanted Sansa Stark's marriage to the Imp annulled, so that Alayne could marry Harry the Heir. And Alayne, despite the desires and sensations of her growing body, was a dutiful daughter. Despite Randa's teasing, she had never moved beyond kissing a man and letting him grope her through her clothes, even though Ser Loran's hot mouth on her neck, his hand on her breast and the hardness he had pressed so urgently against her hip at the feast last month had made her burn between her thighs and ache for a more intimate touch. And so at the age of sixteen, Alayne Stone had not even seen a man fully naked, let alone excited. She found that, all of a sudden, she could not tear her eyes away from the performance going on in front of her.

It did seem queer, however, that Lord Petyr had said the male whore was for other men to take their pleasure in, only now to have him lying with the female whore. That surely would not be his usual trade? Her father would have his reasons, no doubt. _Perhaps it was to get this reaction from me_ , she thought cynically, as she fought to control the rise and fall of her chest, the colour in her cheeks, the restless shifting of her legs. Lord Petyr watched her more than his newly acquired whores, however, and Alayne feared that she had done a poor job of suppressing her body's response.

Later, when the couple had been dismissed, Lord Petyr pulled her into his lap, his small hand resting too high on her thigh, his hardened manhood pressing insistently against her bottom, and kissed her with an almost dazed expression on his face, pushing his tongue into her mouth, the sharp taste of mint making Alayne's stomach clench in nausea. _Please stop..._

He did, eventually, and once back at their lodgings Alayne made her excuses and retired to her bed early, for a thought had occurred to her as she attempted to think of anything but the wet slide of Petyr's mouth on hers, and it was this: why would a man who so clearly desired her want her to marry another? The answer had made her feel faint. Neither Alayne Stone nor Sansa Stark would marry Harrold Hardyng. She did not know how or when Petyr intended to make his move, or even to what end, but she was suddenly certain that once her marriage to the Imp was annulled, Sansa Stark would be forced to marry Petyr Baelish, and something in her rebelled at this final injustice. _He will never get what he wants,_ she promised herself. _Not this time._

Quickly, Alayne changed her clothes into a plain brown day dress and chose a cloak with a deep hood. She waited for the sound of her father's footsteps going to his own room, and then she slipped silently into the corridor, down the stairs and out into the streets of Gulltown.

Her father's whorehouse could not be the only such establishment to have male whores. She had money from her allowance. She knew what she needed to do.

*

There were cathouses aplenty on the dock-front of course, but Sandor fancied somewhere quieter, where they could not afford to be as fussy over the clientele. He didn't know the town at all, but finding the kind of place he was after would not be difficult: walk until the streets were so narrow the first stories of the buildings all but touched in the middle, blocking out the stars. Follow the sounds of drunkenness until the lanes were no longer paved but mere mud packed down by the weight of many feet. There'd be something there, he was confident.

*

Alayne knew her father's current establishments were all in the more well-to-do areas of Gulltown, but he had also mentioned where his main competition could be found: Chain Street. It was more than a street, in fact, more like a winding, dizzying, endless maze of close hanging buildings, lamp smoke and horse apples. She had certainly not envisaged having to wend her way around dung on her quest to alleviate herself of her… burden.

Gods, but she was beginning to wonder if this had been a good idea after all. The streets were full of drunken smallfolk, and already two men had shouted lewd remarks at her as she hurried past. She had imagined finding herself a clean, fine-featured young man, like the one she had seen earlier, but judging by the whores she had already passed on the street, Alayne was beginning to wonder if such a creature could be found down here.

A man lurched out of a doorway right next to Alayne, filling the street momentarily with the thick yellow light and bawdy laughter from the alehouse within, before he staggered into her, muttering unintelligibly. Alayne cried out and flinched away from him, backing away a couple of steps before turning and running as fast as her dainty calfskin boots would allow her.

She did not stop to see if he was following her, and did not slow down as she ought to have done when she rounded a corner, chest heaving in exertion and fright. And so she caromed right into the broad chest of another man, hard enough to knock her backwards a couple of paces. Hard enough to make his cowl fall back from his face.

"Seven save me!" she gasped, staring up at the man from under her hood in absolute shock.

"That's unlikely, girl," the man said, the hint of a familiar, mocking smile in his dark grey eyes. He took a step towards her. "Now what's a high born maid like you doing in a street of filth like this?"

 _My voice_ , Alayne thought frantically. _It's just my voice. He doesn't recognise me – he can't see my face_. She took a step back.

"Answer me, girl," he warned, glowering. "There are worse terrors out there than a man with a burned face, believe me. Are you lost?"

Her breath steamed in the cold air in front of her, little puffs of white forming quickly with her panic. _I don't know you! My name is Alayne Stone. My mother died when I was very small and left me to a Motherhouse. My name is Alayne Stone and I do not know you._

And then, as though to convince herself of the fact, she said it aloud. "I do not know you, ser. My name is Alayne Stone."

"Not a ser," he growled, narrowing his eyes at her in suspicion, then reached out quick as a snake to pull down her hood. And stared at her with eyes gone suddenly wide with shock. "And like fuck is your name Alayne Stone."

Sansa Stark stared up at Sandor Clegane in silence, trembling, until he wrapped one large hand around her upper arm, his grip like iron, and pulled her through the nearest doorway without another word.

*

It was an inn, though like no inn Alayne had ever seen. The word _winesink_ came to mind, though of course she had never been in such a place before.

"Please, ser," she breathed in protest, though quiet enough that she did not think he had heard her. Alayne fumbled for her hood with her free hand as the man who must surely be a ghost pulled her to the back of the dimly lit room and pushed her onto a bench by an empty table. She slid away from him immediately, realising too late that she had backed herself into a corner.

"No one's looking at you, girl," he said, voice a low rumble barely audible above the background hum of sound in the room, pulling her hood back for a second time. "And no one will, unless you make yourself conspicuous."

"Woman," Sansa whispered, shrinking back.

"What?" he said disinterestedly, scrutinising her as he sat on the bench beside her, trapping her between the walls, the table and his massive body.

"Woman," she repeated, voice rising with a sudden flash of irritation. Their eyes met and she attempted to stare him down, though she imagined he had had rather a lot more experience than she, and Alayne ended up with her eyes in her lap once more. "I am not a child any more."

Big fingers gripped her chin and forced her face up, and grey eyes studied her features openly before roaming lower over her body. Alayne had suffered her share of leers, from drunken squires to knights and lords, to stable hands and kitchen boys not old enough to shave – this look barely qualified, though his gaze held an intensity that sent a dark flush to her face, her heart hammering against her ribs in something like fright, her stomach fluttering in something like excitement.

He released her chin but she held his gaze this time, before flicking her eyes over the burned side of his face, lingering on the hint of bone at his jaw, the place where his lips were gone in the corner of his mouth. Reassuring herself that it really was him.

"What is your name, _woman_?" he said eventually.

Alayne's eyes snapped back to his. "I – I _can't_ , my _father_ -" but her words caught suddenly in her throat when he pressed a finger to her lips.

"Your name," he repeated, growling the words like a threat, before removing his finger once more.

"Sansa Stark."

He closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath. It was so unexpected Sansa had to stop herself from staring at him in open amazement.

"And my name?" he demanded, opening his eyes once more, and Sansa had the queer feeling, for the briefest of moments, of looking in a mirror. And that, too, was reassuring.

"Sandor Clegane," she said. "Not a ser." The smile came tentatively to her face, and he barked a surprised laugh and shouted the serving woman over for wine, and Sansa added silently, _Not a dream._

*

She was older, Sandor realised, a woman grown and very beautiful. He had never felt the passage of the years as heavily as he did now, looking at the changes in Sansa Stark. He had not noticed her hair out in the street, but now by the warm light of the smoky candle the serving wench had dumped on their table with the flagon of wine, he could see it had been coloured brown. A stupid disguise that relied on the people of the Vale never actually having seen Sansa Stark with their own eyes. But her hair was not the only change. Her face was thinner, less girlish, her voice deeper, her teats filling her dowdy gown very pleasingly... and she was looking at his face, without being told to or forced. She had never done that as a girl.

Sandor watched her take the stone cup he had filled for her, taking a delicate sip before wrinkling her nose at the taste. You could take a highborn maid out of her silks, he reflected, but something of the finery would always remain.

*

The wine was foul, bitter and vinegary, but Sansa drank it anyway, suddenly feeling like a little of the fuzzy warmth that preceded drunkenness would suit her very well right now.

"I thought you were dead," she confessed to her unlikely companion when the silence stretched uncomfortably. No, it wasn't the silence that made her want to squirm so, but his unwavering gaze and overpowering nearness. "Then again, I also heard you were butchering maidens in the riverlands."

He snorted derisively at that, drinking deep before answering. "As you can see, the first at least is untrue."

When he did not continue, Sansa smiled slightly, nervously. "You are waiting for me to ask if the second is true." He said nothing. "I'm not going to," she added.

Now he looked amused. "And why is that?"

The warmth that spread in her stomach when she realised she was about to say something he could not predict took her off guard. _I am not the stupid little chirping girl he met in King's Landing. I'll show him. He may try to mock me but I will not make it easy for him._

"Because," she answered, "it would be easier to believe you dead, though you sit there before me."

His expression darkened and he leaned forwards, close enough that Sansa had to fight the instinct to lean back and away from him. "Still underestimating the brutality of men?" he asked, the burned corner of his mouth twitching. "Do they treat you so well here?"

"Know your enemy," Sansa retorted. "Ser."

His look darkened further. "You think you know me, _girl_?" Sansa refused to be cowed. He had not hurt her in King's Landing, not when he was Joffrey's dog and not when he was drunk out of his mind and terrified of the wildfire. There was nothing to suggest he would hurt her now. But he was very close, and so big he near filled her entire field of vision. She could feel the heat of his body, and it was somehow hard to think.

"That was not the correct question," she murmured. "You should have asked, _Am I your enemy?_ " She stared at him, her hands gripped tight to one another in her lap to stop her from fidgeting. "And the answer to that is, I have not yet decided."

Sandor Clegane sat back and laughed, long and loud, before refilling his cup and lifting it to her mockingly in toast. "Perhaps you have learnt something after all," he allowed. Sansa joined him in drinking, and wondered why she regretted the loss of his warmth as it was already quite stifling in here.

"Now," he said, " _you_ tell _me_ – what are you doing here, and who is this father you spoke of?"

She told him everything: Ser Dontos and her flight from King's Landing, Aunt Lysa and the manner of her death, Petyr and his endless schemes within schemes, and his kisses, and her fears. It was stupid and dangerous, even with her voice hushed, her face anonymous in this lowly establishment. Petyr had eyes and ears everywhere, and she could not help glancing around repeatedly in fear of being found out, though Sandor reassured her there was no one here who should not be. The thing was, she couldn't seem to help herself. The words flowed out of her like a waterfall, sweet and cool and tasting of truth. Gods, she had not told the truth in so long! It was sweet release to name herself Sansa and talk of all the things she had hidden to someone who knew her, the cheap wine bolstering her courage. And Sandor... she told herself that he would have known if she was lying anyway, but the way he was looking at her was like balm on her bruised soul – angry, but not with her. Angry on her behalf. Part of her kept talking merely to keep that look in his eyes.

Sansa remembered wishing Ser Dontos had had some of this man's fierceness. He had always scared her, and yet somehow she was no longer afraid, no longer felt trapped by him in the corner of the room, no longer remembered that she had once been repelled by his face.

"What are you doing?" he asked when she suddenly reached out to touch his scars, voice low and... pleasing, she realised.

"Hmm," Sansa said, frowning in half-drunken concentration as she traced the topography of his face with her fingertips. "Trying to... take it."

"Take what?" he said, body so still he might have been frozen, if he wasn't so warm.

"Your ferocity. I need some for myself."

His expression stilled to match his body. "It doesn't come without the scars, little bird," he rasped, "but I don't think you want me to hold your face in that fire over there."

 _Little bird_. Sansa smiled sadly and lowered her hand, taking his big one in both of hers and placing his palm flat on her chest. "I have scars," she murmured, feeling her heart beat against his hand. The neckline of this dress was more modest than her finer gowns, but low enough still that his skin touched hers. "They are not so easily seen, it is true, but they are there."

He was staring, for once not at her face but at his own hand. His fingers twitched, as though to stroke her skin, and suddenly she felt both overly sensitive and aching for more. When he moved his hand lower, brushing fingertips against the curve of her breast, a thumb over one hardened nipple, she gasped. The small sound seemed to break the fragile moment and he snatched his hand back, staring at her as he had out in the street when he had first pulled her hood back. And Sansa suddenly remembered why she had left her lodgings tonight in the first place.

"I'm still a maid!" she blurted, and blushed furiously when her ears caught up with her mouth.

"I know," Sandor said slowly, eyes narrowed. Yes, that was right, she had said so earlier when she had told him of Petyr's plan to annul her marriage to Tyrion. His mouth twitched, his expression descending into a scowl of irritation before he snatched up his drink. "I meant nothing by it," he said bitterly when he had drained his cup.

"No," Sansa said, shuffling minutely closer on the bench. "That isn't... isn't what I meant. Petyr intends to marry me himself, when the annulment has been agreed, I am certain. He has plans for me, Sandor," she whispered, "but I mean for them never to come to fruition."

He had become silent and watchful once more, staring at her with an expression that was hard to read, grey eyes glittering in the candlelight.

Moving carefully, as the room seemed to sway gently when she moved, Sansa rose to her feet. She was still trapped by the walls and the table and the man before her, but it put her face slightly higher than his, and she rather thought she would prefer he not look down on her for this. "I was looking for someone out there," she said, meaning Chain Street. "Someone to help me rid myself of the evidence Petyr would use to wed me. A man. A... whore."

"You're drunk, woman," Sandor said, though his eyes had fallen to her mouth, and his voice was low and hoarse.

"Yes, now," Sansa agreed, her hands moving to her bodice. "I was not before."

She did not quite have her back to the room, but nobody knew who she was here and the thought filled her with a sudden boldness. Tugging lightly she unknotted the laces at the top of her bodice, loosening it. Sandor's eyes flicked down to her chest and he grabbed her hands in his, pulling them roughly away.

"I thought you were looking for a whore," he hissed, "not hoping to become one."

Sansa gasped at his impudence, but did not miss the way he could not seem to look up from her heaving bosom.

"I need to be rid of it one way or another," she whispered back, leaning forwards to give him a better view. "I'll even pay you, if it please you, but don't you agree this is easier than the alternative?"

He looked up at her then, something savage in his eyes that made her skin prickle, made her hot from head to toes, the heat coalescing somewhere deep in her belly.

"You'll not pay me," he snarled, "but you will beg me before I've finished with you, know that."

And then he was on his feet, pulling her behind him as he asked the inn keep for a room, and Sansa's stomach fluttered in nerves and anticipation.


	2. Chapter 2

The room was pretty damn spacious for an inn like this, Sandor thought, though nothing compared to what the little bird was no doubt used to. Bed, washstand, guarderobe that probably spilled straight out onto the street below. The bedding looked clean, too, and he did not miss her look of relief when she noticed the same thing.

He had half expected her to lose her nerve now that they were alone in a room with a bed, the door barred. Was mentally preparing himself for... what, he was not sure. But though she now seemed more tentative, sobered a little by the walk up the stairs and the cool draft gusting in between the battered shutters, she did not look any less intent on achieving her target. Which was to lose her maidenhead to him.

“Fuck me,” he swore, softly but heartfelt, an exclamation at the way this night had played out so far and not directed at anything but the night itself. Yet the little bird’s cheeks pinked and she glanced away quickly as a surprised laugh bubbled out of her.

“That was my intention,” she said, voice soft but eyes bold when they met his once more. “Though I think I will require some... instruction,” she added, making a small, helpless gesture that somehow did more than her loosened bodice to stoke the fire within him.

Sandor sat down on the edge of the bed. “Instruction, is it?” he said, voice low with intent. “Come here, then, woman.”

She moved towards him, stopping a demure distance from his spread thighs. He reached forwards and put his hands on her waist, revelling in the feel of the soft curve of her body there, and pulled her to stand between his legs.

“Unlace yourself,” he said, “and give me a look at what’s been promised.”

He held her eyes as long as he could, searching for any sign of hesitation, unsure what he felt when there was none. And then when he could stand it no longer he let his gaze drop, watching hungrily as the ‘V’ of exposed skin slowly deepened towards her navel. _Gods, she isn’t wearing a shift_. And his cock jumped at the thought that she might not be wearing smallclothes, either.

She did not pull back the fabric immediately, loosening the bodice’s lacings all the way to her waist first, so that her teats sat only partially exposed and so fucking tempting. Rubbing his hands up her sides from her waist, Sandor pressed with the heels of his hands lightly inwards, pushing her teats together, transfixed for a moment by the sweet curves of her unblemished flesh. Her breath hitched when he swiped his thumbs down over her hardened nipples showing plain through the fabric, lips parting and neck arching back.

Leaning forwards, Sandor pressed his mouth to the skin of her sternum before turning his face and touching his lips to the firm curve of one sweet teat, breathing hot against her soft skin. He felt pressure at the back of his head, and when he realised it was Sansa’s hands cradling him, holding him in place against her chest, he felt a stab of arousal so strong it near made him see stars for a moment.

“Please,” she whispered.

“Please what, little bird?”

He drew back to look up at her, the heat in her blue eyes taking him by surprise.

“Please touch me again,” she said softly, haltingly, “my... my nipples... it felt so good.”

 _Gods, she truly is a maid if that is what she begs for,_ he thought, darkly amused.

“I thought you said I was to instruct you,” he said, but obliged her, peeling back the two halves of her bodice and taking one tight nipple between his lips, squeezing it lightly before swiping her with his tongue while he thumbed the other. She let out a moan, low and wanton, giggled self-consciously at herself, and stopped to moan once more when he repeated the action.

Her hands were at his head once more, fingers winding in his hair. Her little claws were scraping his scalp in a way that was probably not intentional, but was somehow still driving him mad. Drawing back once more he took her hand and pressed it to the bulge between his legs, groaning as he moved her hand up and down to rub him through his breeches.

“Feel that?” he growled. “That’s a man’s desire. That is what I will pierce that sweet cunt of yours with, little bird, and fuck you until you scream.”

She was bending slightly to reach his dick, teats bared and practically in his face, and when he removed his hand from hers to cup them, he felt her tentative fingers tracing his outline, sending a shiver up his spine and down to his balls. Her eyes were dark with desire, pupils dilated.

“Yes,” was all she said to that. And then, a moment later than her courtesies no doubt dictated, “Please.”

*

 _He is much bigger than Petyr,_ she thought as she fondled him through his breeches, feeling bold and light-headed and excited all at once. That was good. She not only wanted her maidenhead broken, but completely eradicated, and what better way than with a man of his size? Randa had said it would sting the first time, but Sandor had promised her she would beg him for it before the night was done, and that meant he would not take her before she was ready. Gods, but she almost felt ready to beg for it _now_!

Never in all the dreams she had had about this man had Sansa ever imagined she would find herself bare-breasted before him with her hand between his legs, making him groan so low in his throat she could scarce hear it, only feel the vibration in the places their bodies touched. And yet, she felt curiously free, and so very aroused, pressing her breasts into his big hands with abandon. 

The way he suckled on her nipples as he massaged her with his hands... Randa had told her men did such things, but she had not realised how _good_ it would feel. Randa had also told her how some men liked to suckle between a woman’s legs, or have her suckle between his – something Sansa had flat out refused to believe, but maybe...

“You have said you will make me scream, and you have said you will make me beg,” she murmured heatedly between gasps. “Tell me, what else will you do to me, Sandor?”

He looked up at her, eyes burning, and Sansa’s skin shivered pleasurably into goose flesh. “First, I’m going to get you naked,” he rasped, pulling her forwards with a hand at the small of her back until she had no choice but to straddle his lap, her breasts pressed up against the roughspun fabric of his tunic. She could feel the hard bulge of his manhood beneath her and shifted her skirts so that he was pressing directly against her entrance through her smallclothes. “Then, you will undress me,” he continued, breathing the words hot and intimate into her ear as his hands fell to her bottom and he urged her forwards, rubbing her womanhood against his hardened member. “You’ll kneel between my legs and suck on me until your jaw aches and you understand what you’ve been asking for.” Sansa’s breath came raggedly as the feel of him against her most sensitive place caused her stomach to tighten in anticipation, only half-aware that she was licking her lips. “You’ll get restless eventually, desperate for me to touch you, and I will. Gods, I will touch you everywhere, Sansa. But not where you want me to, not until you beg. Then, I’ll put a finger in you, open that tight, hot cunt ready for me. I’ll taste you, too, lick you until you’re dripping wet.” Sansa moaned, grinding herself down hard against him, pleased when his voice choked off for a moment. Suddenly hasty, she pushed her gaping bodice from her shoulders and arms until she was fully bare from the waist up, fingers scrabbling at his tunic until he raised his arms to help her remove it. Pressing her breasts to his naked chest was better than anything she had felt so far, and her eyes fluttered closed, feeling his mouth hot at her sensitive neck. “I won’t let you peak, though,” he continued roughly, lips moving against her throat. “I will keep you so fucking high but you won’t come until you’ve got my cock in you.”

“Oh, gods,” Sansa whimpered, wondering dazedly how she was going to last as far as getting fully unclothed, not to mention the rest of what he’d said.

He seemed to sense her thoughts, however, standing from the bed with his hands beneath her bottom, lifting her as though she weighed nothing at all. _He is so strong,_ she thought helplessly, clutching at the hard muscles of his shoulders and biceps, staring down at her hands on his skin, surprisingly soft, until she could resist the temptation no longer and pressed her mouth to the crook of his neck. 

She felt his chest move with his sudden intake of breath, felt his pulse racing against her lips. His skin smelled amazing, not perfumed as some men were but heady nonetheless, so warm, and when she touched her tongue to him curiously he tasted of salt and strength and arousal, and Sansa hooked her ankles around his back and her arms around his neck, desperate to be as close as she possibly could. He squeezed her bottom rhythmically as she traced wanton, open-mouthed kisses up his neck, marvelling at the change in texture where his stubble began, feeling how his hands and his breath and his whole being seemed to stutter when she pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

He pulled back from her. Not startled, exactly, but assessing, a look that made Sansa’s heart race madly in anxiety that she had done something wrong.

“A whore would not have kissed you, little bird,” he murmured, danger edging his voice, though Sansa found herself unafraid of him. He shifted her weight slightly until he was supporting her with just one hand as he brought the other up to her head, pushing his fingers into her hair. Her lips parted as he pulled on her hair, forcing her to tilt her head back slightly so that he could look fully on her face, even the pain in her scalp feeling almost unbearably good.

“But you would not accept my payment,” she breathed. Their eyes met and the moment stretched and stretched, Sansa suddenly aware of the way her bare chest was heaving against his own, the slight tickle and scrape of the hair on his chest against her hardened nipples, the way her hips were rocking against him seemingly of their own accord.

“You want me to kiss you?” he asked. It seemed a strange question to her, and she wondered for a moment if he was finally going to mock her for her plan tonight. His voice was deep with amusement, yes, but something else too, something darker that made her tighten her arms possessively around his neck.

“Yes,” she moaned, veritably throbbing when his eyes fell to her mouth and he pulled her forwards by the hand in her hair until their lips met, firm and demanding.

 _Yes,_ she thought vaguely, _this is what I remember. All those squires and knights and kitchen boys Alayne kissed, and_ this _is what I was searching for._

He did not kiss like the men in the songs. Those kisses were chaste and sweet. Sandor’s kisses were full of heat and a fierce lust that made her forget everything but him. She shuddered all over when his tongue touched hers, the sensation so powerful she was glad he held her, her legs feeling weak even without the need to stand on them. Gods, she could barely _breath_ , lost in the sensation of his tongue assaulting hers while her lungs burned. She was distantly aware that she was digging her nails into the flesh of his back, but he either did not notice or did not care. When he began to fumble with her skirts, however, Sansa was forced to loosen her legs, torn between more kissing and the sudden need to be naked with this man. He released her slowly, letting her slide down his front, his manhood rubbing the whole length of her woman’s place until it was pressed hard against her belly and her toes touched the ground.

One firm push and her gown fell from her hips, leaving her clad in nothing but her boots and smallclothes, and as he reached to unknot the tie at her navel, Sansa unlaced his breeches, delighting at the sounds he made when her knuckles brushed his erection. He stepped back from her to kick off his boots before removing his breeches as well, but Sansa barely had time to admire his naked body, the solid muscle of his thighs and the thickness of his rock hard member, before he had knelt before her, guiding her with warm hands on the backs of her calves to step out of the clothes pooled about her ankles.

“My boots,” she said dazedly, and he looked up at her, amusement glittering in his eyes.

“I’m tempted to tell you keep them on,” he said, raising her left foot to rest atop his thigh, “but I did say you would be naked.”

He unfastened one boot, and then the other, and then Sansa’s breath caught as he curled his hands around the backs of her thighs and pulled her closer so that she stood with her legs parted, one foot either side of his knees, naked as her nameday and feeling deliciously exposed.

“What are you-“ she tried, but her voice cut off into a moan as he kissed the delicate inside of her thigh. When he did it again her legs trembled alarmingly and she reached down her hands to his shoulders to steady herself. “I thought you said I was to... to suck on you first,” she panted, her womanhood burning with anticipation as his kisses neared the top of her thigh.

“I’ve changed my mind,” he rasped, before gently parting her lips with his thumbs and licking slowly, so slowly, across her clit.

*

She tasted amazing. It was a bloody torture making himself go so slowly, but he could feel her trembling, feel how wet she was, and he had meant it when he said she would not come until he intended. He let his tongue drag up over her sensitive vulva and her clit in long, slow licks, moving the thumbs that parted her lips in slow, tantalising circles. Eventually, he circled in tighter to her clit, laving the little knot of flesh as she shuddered and gasped for breath, making high, mewling sounds of pleasure that made him ache to possess her.

 _I could just pull her down onto me,_ he thought. _She’s standing right there, tight little cunt straight over my cock_. His dick jumped at the thought, but he knew that once he was inside her it would not take long, and he was not yet ready for the night to be at an end. Instead he stroked one finger down to her slit and teased at her entrance, slick with her desire, wetting his fingers with her before reaching down and taking himself in hand.

She made a little whimper of complaint when he took his hand away from her, lifting one leg and hitching it over his shoulder, trying to pull him closer to her cunt.

Sandor grinned at her immodesty, but felt himself getting dangerously close, spurred on by her complete abandon. He made one last, long pull on his cock, so slow it was close to agony, before raising both hands to cup her round, firm arse cheeks. Starting to suck her clit lightly in between using his tongue, Sandor traced the line of her coccyx with his fingertips, down between her arse cheeks. He had had a noblewoman back in King’s Landing once who’d frozen stiff as a plank when he’d started touching her there, but his little bird just shivered, singing her sweet song of moans and gasps, making small, almost delicate movements with her hips, urging him on. To do what, she probably did not know, he thought, but he recognised well enough the burning need for just _more_. 

Gods her arse was amazing, smooth and plump, enough to fill his hands with and let his fingers explore her. She was so innocent, she would probably faint if he attempted to do to her even half the things that flew through his mind as his fingers touched the tender skin beneath her tailbone, but if in the seven hells for some gods-be-damned reason she wanted him back in her bed after tonight, then he would explore her properly, as he wanted to. When he finally ran one fingertip gently over her arsehole the noise she made sounded as though it had been ripped from her throat, deep and raw and needy. She bucked her hips against his face, hands clenched tightly in his hair, and when he stroked that fingertip lower to tease at the back of her cunt before finally pushing up into her soft warmth, he knew that she was not like to last much longer.

“Get on the bed,” he said, pulling back and carefully lowering her leg to the floor. She stumbled slightly in her haste to obey, flushed pink, looking dazed out of her wits with desire. Sandor growled low in his throat as he rose and followed her.

“How... how you do you want me?” she asked as she lay back.

 _Fucking begging for it,_ he thought as he cast his eyes down the length of her body. Seven hells, how could any woman be so beautiful, so bloody perfect? Even with her hair in disarray, skin glowing with a fine sheen of sweat – in fact _because_ of all that – she looked like nothing he had ever seen before, and it made more than just his cock ache.

“Further over,” he directed, finally coming to a decision, and took her by the hips and pulled her closer to the edge of the bed. She squealed in surprise, the bed linens rucking up around her, exquisite teats with their perfect pink nipples rising and falling with her rapid breath.

“And now?” she panted. Sandor licked his lips, tasting her on him still. For a moment he was tempted to tell her to sit up and let him fuck her mouth until he came, Stranger take him, he wanted everything with her.

“Spread your legs,” he said instead.

*

 _He looks like he wants to eat me alive,_ Sansa thought as she watched Sandor’s eyes rake the length of her body. Then she realised that that was not such a poor description of what he had been doing to her just now, with his mouth between her legs, but instead of blushing she felt a deep twinge of desire in her womanhood, overlaying the ache that had been building there ever since Sandor had first touched her breast downstairs. _Gods, I want him._

“Spread your legs,” he said, but he was looking at her face again instead of what was between her legs, and Sansa locked her eyes to his before she slowly parted her thighs.

“Let me touch you,” she begged, and he leant over her, one knee on the bed, but batted her hands away from his member when she tried to reach for him.

“Not if you truly want me to take your maidenhead,” he growled, his voice singing through her veins like wildfire, making her burn for him.

“Then take it,” she said, lying back, not removing her eyes from his. He shifted his position so that his knee was beneath her thigh, pushing her leg up and over his, parting her legs further, his other foot still on the floor as he rested his hands on the mattress either side of her head, hair falling forwards around his face.

“Not yet,” he said, grinning dangerously. Sansa was distantly aware that she was sucking in breath like a woman drowning, her skin tingling with arousal and the want of his touch. Desperate for him, she reached up and threw her arms around his neck. At first he did not yield, and she ended up pulling herself up to meet him instead, kissing him feverishly, rubbing her tightened nipples against his chest and in the process feeling the hot bar of his manhood press against her mound.

The sensation was so overwhelming that Sansa’s back arched convulsively, breasts pressed tight to Sandor, head thrown back with a cry of pleasure, breaking their kiss. Sandor groaned and slid an arm around her back and held her to him before lowering them both back to the mattress, kissing hotly up her throat as he thrust himself against her.

 _I am going to peak,_ she thought helplessly, _it is too good._ But just as the waves of her culmination began finally to gather, Sandor lifted himself from her once more, touching her nowhere except on the mouth, and where his thigh held her open for him. The cool air caressed her skin in his stead, over-sensitized and wanting.

“No!” she groaned into his kiss, barely knowing what she was saying, reaching for him once more only for him to trap both her wrists in one big hand and pin them to the bed above her head.

“I promised you you’d beg, little bird,” he rasped. It seemed to Sansa that time somehow slowed with the force of her anticipation as she lowered her gaze to look down the space between their bodies, watching him taking hold of himself in his free hand. She watched transfixed as he stroked himself, the head of his manhood appearing and disappearing through his hand, Sandor making no sound beyond his laboured breathe, before he finally, finally used his hand to direct his manhood to her entrance.

The feeling when his tip touched her was exquisite torment, and Sansa shook as he stroked his member up and down her slit, spreading her wetness but not pushing in.

“Oh, _gods,_ ” Sansa cursed, writhing in his grip against the onslaught, so good and yet too little. “Sandor, please, _please_ , oh...”

He laughed breathlessly, looking down on her. “Please what?”

“Please take me,” she moaned, screwing her eyes closed as another wave of pleasure rolled through her, not quite taking her far enough.

“Look at me,” he ordered, the usually angry words sounding desperately vulnerable all of a sudden. Sansa’s eyes flew open, regretting her thoughtlessness immediately, wishing she could kiss him or touch his cheek. _But I know what will please him,_ she thought with a flash of heat to her core.

Sansa looked up at him, the fire in his grey eyes, the straining of the muscles in the arm he held her down with, his sheer magnificent presence, and said clearly and in great earnestness, “Sandor, please, _fuck me_.”

The sound he made was feral, deep and rasping and beyond words. Slowly, slowly, he pressed the head of his manhood against her entrance, and for a moment Sansa feared she was not big enough to accommodate him. Then she felt her body yield, her maidenhead breaking with a sharp sting that made her draw in her breath so suddenly it sounded like a sob.

Above her, Sandor froze, arms trembling with the strain, his gaze boring into her.

“Fuck, you’re so tight,” he growled, “I’ve never had a maid before.”

 _Is he mocking me or giving me a compliment?_ Sansa wondered absently, but most of her mind was focussed on the unfamiliar intrusion to her body, the sensation of being so stretched, the way her body was still singing for release, the pain of her lost innocence tingling almost into pleasure.

“Does it hurt, little bird?” he whispered, something strange and tender in his fierce eyes.

“Yes,” she hissed through clenched teeth, and then, when he released her wrists to reach between their bodies and brush his thumb against her clit, “No. Oh, _gods_!”

She felt him shifting his weight onto his left arm so that he could reach between her legs more easily. Oddly gentle, he stroked little circles into her sensitive flesh while he withdrew the small distance he had entered her, and pushed forwards once more.

“Slowly,” she breathed, her insides burning with both pleasure and pain, and he obeyed her, making slow, light thrusts until he was more substantially within her. And then he seemed to change his angle somehow, thrusting _up_ as well as in, and Sansa near screamed at the roaring burst of sensation deep within her, meeting his next thrust with bucked hips before she even realised what she was doing.

“Sansa,” he growled as she felt him go deep, the soft slap of his balls against her body telling her he was all the way in.

“Yes,” she moaned in reply, reaching for him, and he pulled her close, kissing her fiercely as he withdrew again and thrust back in, a long, sweet glide of his hard member that made her whimper and grind herself against him, his manhood and his fingers. “ _Yes_ ,” she moaned again as she felt her release building, “please, _please_.”

“I always knew you’d sing so sweetly,” he rasped, and pressed down hard on her aching clit, fucking her in earnest now.

“ _Sandor_ ,” she cried, her nails in the skin of his back sure to leave marks as she sought an anchor in the maelstrom, arching against him as her release exploded through her, rolling waves of heat and pleasure that seemed to restart with every thrust he made, leaving her gasping for breath.

His eyes had not left hers the entire time, but only when she refocused on him did she see how they burned, the intensity of his gaze sending another jolt through her. She lowered one hand from around his neck to tenderly stroke his cheek, watching him transfixed as he moved within her, taking a strange delight in the sweat shining on his skin, the low groans of pleasure he made, before he claimed her mouth once more and finally tensed all over, roaring his release, his manhood pulsing deep within her, sending sweet shivers across Sansa’s skin.

He all but collapsed on her when he was done, burying his face in her neck, and Sansa wrapped her arms around his back and held him close. The feel of his body atop hers, his heaviness and strength, brought an unexpected joy to her chest that seemed to spread throughout her, expansive.

“Thank you,” she murmured, and then once more, in a queer rush of emotion, “thank you so much.”

He laughed, rich and low, and pushed himself up to look at her. “You’re a strange little creature,” he said.

“So long as I pleased you,” she replied, smiling, suddenly and irrationally shy.

“You need to ask?” His breath was warm against her ear as he bent to press his lips to the line of her jaw. “Yes, little bird, you pleased me greatly.”

Sansa’s smile widened and she turned her head to kiss him, slow now that the urgency had burned away, and strangely sweet.

“Will you stay here with me tonight?” she asked before she could lose her nerve.

He regarded her for several long heartbeats, his expression difficult to interpret, before he kissed her lightly once more, and said, “Aye, all right.”


	3. Chapter 3

The candle was still flickering in its saucer when Sansa awoke. It had been late when they finally went to sleep, but she did not think she had slept long, the sky still pitch black through the cracks in the shutters. The mattress was straw and lumpier than she was used to, but the man beside her was warm, and Sansa had discovered exactly what she was willing to put up with to be held by him like this.

Sandor had not been so talkative after they were finished earlier, but she remembered that from King’s Landing, the silences he would fall into sometimes as he retreated within his own thoughts. She had not pushed him for conversation, merely laid back and watched as he cleaned himself up with the rag from the small washbowl by the window, allowed him to clean her too, a warmth spreading through her body as he gently wiped his seed from her thighs that was not quite embarrassment. There was no blood, as her Septa had taught her to expect, but Randa had told her that if a woman truly wanted a man then she did not always bleed, and by the Seven, once he had started touching her Sansa had wanted Sandor more than anything she had known.

And now he lay, warm and solid at her back, legs tangled with hers and one arm heavy and secure across her waist, and Sansa felt like crying at the thought that he would leave her in the morning. That she would have to return to Petyr and bury herself under the protection of Alayne once more. Spreading her fingers, she fitted them to the valleys between the knuckles of his much larger hand, running them lightly back and forth. Petyr had rescued her from the perpetual fear she had felt in King’s Landing, it was true, but she had never felt as safe as she did now, in Sandor’s arms – not even hidden away atop the Eyrie before winter had come.

“I dreamt of you,” she whispered to him, staring unseeing at the opposite wall. “I dreamt you were my husband instead of Tyrion; that I had run away with you when you asked it of me.”

Sandor’s breath continued heavy and even, stirring her hair: he was still asleep. Sansa sighed, blinked away the wetness in her eyes, and decided to address the issue that had brought her to wakefulness in the first place. Sandor had used the guarderobe earlier, once he had cleaned them both up, and it had made Sansa blush as deeply as anything else that had happened that night. Even living as a bastard she was not used to sharing her personal... functions... and had put off making her water earlier in case he would be able to hear her. But now she could not wait any longer, especially given the amount she had drunk earlier, and wriggling out from beneath his arm, she tiptoed to the tiny closet in the corner of the room.

When she returned she saw that Sandor had moved, pushing the covers down his chest and rolling onto his back. The candlelight cast the muscles of his arms, shoulders and chest into sharp relief and she stood for a moment, simply looking. He was quite beautiful, in his own way – strong and honed, and there was beauty in that more lasting that Joffrey’s golden veneer or Ser Loras’s comely face. His hair had fallen over his scarring and Sansa bent and pushed it back to look fully on his face. He looked gaunt, more so even than he had in King’s Landing, and it occurred to her that she had not asked him where _he_ had been all this time. He had clearly not cared well for himself, she realised with a pang. _Or he was not able to._ And yet despite all that, it felt good to look on him thus, to touch light fingertips to the strange rivens of scar tissue and not feel fear, or disgust, but instead a deep sense of appreciation and fondness. She touched her lips lightly to the burnt corner of his mouth where the fire had taken his lips, feeling the smooth firmness of the tissue there, knowing she would never forget the way kissing him felt. 

Sandor sighed in his sleep and Sansa drew back, not yet willing to wake him – she had not had a chance to look on him properly earlier, _all_ of him, and it occurred to her that this was her chance, perhaps the only one she would get.

He was still naked, as she was, her modesty seemingly gone in his presence. He had kissed her all over earlier, and that surely meant that the sight of her body pleased him, just as the sight of his pleased her, and so despite the coolness of the room Sansa felt no need to cover up now. Instead, she carefully peeled the bed covers away from his body before climbing up to straddle his shins, wrapping the covers about her shoulders like a cloak, leaving him completely exposed.

She cast her eyes down the length of him, scarred face with its strong features that somehow made her smile now instead of recoiling in fear, broad shoulders, strong arms and chest, every muscle seemingly chiselled like a statue of the Warrior himself. He had hair on his chest, thick and dark but, when she stroked him lightly with her fingertips, surprisingly soft. Curiously, Sansa let her hand drift sideways, brushing one small nipple. It tightened into a peak and he breathed out heavily, though remained asleep. Sansa smiled again to herself, feeling delightfully wicked. _Oh, Randa would be so amazed if she could see me now._

Moving lower, Sansa trailed her hand down his belly, rippling with solid muscle, a light scattering of hair there, too, though she took most pleasure in feeling how unexpectedly soft his skin was. There were scars all over his body, most small and silvery, but the occasional puckered line of flesh, and yet... his skin was near as soft as her own, and it gave her a pang high in her chest, at how vulnerable he suddenly seemed, just flesh and bone as she was.

One of the worst scars was on his thigh, a deep gash right in the meatiest part of the muscle that looked as though it had healed badly, the skin puckering into a deep valley, as though some of the flesh had been cut away. _My poor Hound,_ she thought sadly, wondering if some maester had had to set the maggots to clean his wound as she had seen Maester Colemon do for a wounded hunter at the Gates of the Moon. Bending, she kissed the top of the scar where it began just a few inches beneath his hipbone. Sandor made a small sound, deep and low in his throat, and Sansa watched in utter fascination as his manhood began to lengthen.

She had seen stallions in heat, of course, stealing glances and running away to giggle childishly with Jeyne Poole back in Winterfell; blushing furiously at Randa’s bawdy comparisons more recently. Though she knew that a man’s member was usually soft and floppy, and not the hard bar of heat Sandor had pleasured her with earlier, still she had never seen the process of getting from one state to another.

Sandor’s manhood was particularly nice, she decided after some moments of observation. Even relaxed it was thick and long – much bigger than the boys Randa had taken her to spy on, bathing naked in that lake in the forest. Curiously, she kissed the smooth, hairless skin at the top of his thigh, close enough to his groin that her breath stirred his pubic hair, then reached up and brushed his balls lightly with her fingertips, and watched in satisfaction as Sandor’s member continued to grow and become more firm. _He said he wanted me to suck on him,_ Sansa remembered. He had done every other thing he had promised to her earlier – near threatened her with, really, Sansa thought, one corner of her mouth quirking up in a small grin – but he had not in the end asked her to put her mouth on him.

And now, she wanted to. It had felt so amazingly good when he had licked and suckled between her legs, his tongue hot and wet and firm and soft all at once and nearly too much. She wanted to give him that feeling in return, and know that his pleasure came from her actions.

Moving carefully so as not to disturb him, Sansa leant closer to Sandor’s lap and lowered her face until her nose was near touching his manhood. He smelled... unusual, clean skin and arousal... he smelled good. Bending lower, Sansa touched her lips to his shaft, rubbing them lightly on skin that was just as shockingly smooth as the skin of his belly had been. He was fully hard now, and Sansa could feel a light thrumming under her lips, the racing of blood, and parted her lips to touch her tongue to it.

Then, it seemed the simplest thing in the world to trace a line up the full length of him with her tongue, wrapping her hand around the base of his shaft as she neared the head, squeezing him gently, wondering what would feel good. His tip was shrouded in a fold of skin, and tentatively she pulled it back to expose the smooth, rounded head of his manhood, flushed red with arousal. Sandor moaned indistinctly, his flesh twitching in her hand, setting Sansa’s heart racing in excitement. She parted her lips around the head of Sandor’s member and lightly touched her tongue to him, eyes flicking up to his face to gauge his reaction. She was dissatisfied to see it was not much to speak of, and so she licked him again, more forcefully, running her tongue all around the head of him, teasing at his slit and the queer little knot of skin on the underside.

This time, his hands clenched sharply in the bed linens and he drew in a deep breath, bucking his hips so that he pushed himself more fully into her mouth.

“Little bird,” he rasped, voice still thick with sleep, and Sansa raised her eyes to his at the same time as she licked over the same sensitive spot once more. His eyes were dark with lust and Sansa felt a stab of heat between her legs, almost moaning at the sensation.

Keeping her eyes on his, she pulled her mouth back up along his shaft before pushing down onto him again, thinking to imitate the motion he had so enjoyed when he took her maidenhead earlier. He groaned, long and low and raw, and the next time she raised herself back up his length he buried a hand in her hair, pulling her down almost urgently.

She could feel herself becoming aroused again, feel the reaction of her body to his, a stabbing heat and wetness between her legs, an ache that needed satisfying. She loved the feeling of him in her mouth, the hardness of him against her tongue, the gentle strength with which he guided her movements, the sounds that seemed ripped from his chest as she sucked lightly on his tip before filling her mouth with him greedily, pushing him to the back of her throat until it felt uncomfortable. She loved the taste, sharp salt and skin, as his member began to leak fluid in want of her. She loved that he just wanted her.

“Sansa,” he moaned, lowering the hand in her hair to brush her cheek and the line of her jaw, his thumb coming to rest on her lower lip where it stretched around his flesh. His voice was rough and raw with need, and that alone might have made her shiver, but the sound of her name after so long being Alayne – the sound of her name in _his voice_ – was so thrilling that her skin quivered into goose flesh, feeling too tight, nipples taut and breasts aching for his touch. On another night, if the chance ever came again, she would pleasure him thus until he spilled his seed right into her mouth, and probably touch herself as she did it. But the future was uncertain and Sansa felt a sudden desperation well up in her to be close to him, intimate in a way this action was not.

“Please don’t peak yet,” she murmured, drawing back, wiping the saliva from the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand. 

His look was pure heat. “You had something else in mind?”

“Yes,” she said simply, and slid up his body until she could rub her womanhood deliciously against his erection. She shuddered at the sparks of pleasure that shot up her spine before dragging herself away from him, up on her knees, positioning herself over his shaft and taking him in hand, guiding him to press against her aching slit.

He growled when he felt her wetness on him, clamping his hands around her hips in a grip like iron. For a moment Sansa thought he meant to stop her, meant to make her beg for it again. _And I would do it, gladly._ But then he arched his powerful body and pushed up into her, stealing Sansa’s breath so that she could not even gasp.

It still hurt; she knew it would. She wanted that pain. She might never see him again once the dawn came, but she wanted the visceral memory of this night for as long as she could keep it. “Harder,” she told him, her own voice turned hoarse with the swelling of emotion and sensation, fighting his grip on her hips to meet his thrusts with her own.

But even this, the joining of their bodies, did not feel like enough to Sansa, and she leant forward until her chest pressed down against his, her hands grasping at his shoulders, her face buried in the crook of his neck.

“Tell me what you want,” he whispered to her, and she felt the low rumble of his words through her chest, his arms sure and strong wrapped around her back, his lips brushing her ear as he continued to thrust up into her.

 _Everything!_ Sansa wanted to cry, wanted to beat her fists against his chest until he understood. “You,” she said instead. “This.”

*

Sandor had often dreamt of Sansa Stark, sometimes dreams so innocent he wanted to laugh at himself for his pitiful desires, sometimes dreams so vivid he woke with his hand around his hardened dick, already stroking. He had even dreamt of holding her in his arms, just holding her, as he had done when they fell asleep earlier tonight. But nothing his imagination had ever conjured up could compare to the sensation of waking with his cock in her mouth; of opening his eyes to see his little bird with her perfect pink lips stretched around his erection, swirling her tongue around his head inexpertly but feeling so fucking good.

He had refused to believe for a moment that he was not still dreaming, but when the naked vision before him persisted he had not been able to hold back, pushing his fingers into her thick auburn hair and urging her to speed up, to take him deeper.

Seven hells, if someone had told him yesterday how his search for a whore would end... and she was so fucking eager, lowering herself onto him, already beyond wet.

“Tell me what you want,” he whispered into her hair as she clutched him tight against her, prepared to give her anything she asked for.

“You,” she whispered back, voice sounding oddly choked. “This.”

Sandor felt a sharp constriction in his chest, a feeling in his stomach like nausea but somehow pleasurable. She had clamped herself around him so tightly that he could barely move his hips to fuck her, but he slowed his thrusts nonetheless, wanting to draw this out. She shuddered with every thrust, moaning into his skin with abandon. Sandor lowered one hand to her arse, and raised the other to the back of her head, urging her face up with a tug on her hair until he could kiss her deeply, possessively. 

Gods, he loved the sounds of her pleasure, so honest after all the whores he’d fucked. He never would have believed his little bird would grow into a woman who could be so bold, look on his face not only without fear but with something he was tempted to call affection, fuck him with such open desire. He had never thought he would see her again at all. But here she was, smooth skin and hot blood, holding him so tightly it felt as though she was trying to pull herself into his fucking _soul_.

“I want to touch you,” he growled, pushing himself up into a sitting position, the little bird in his lap still impaled on his cock.

She moaned at the change in position, starting to ride him with slow, deep thrusts that made her teats bounce against his chest. “You’re touching me now,” she gasped, half in protest.

“Not the way I want.”

Lifting her off him he knelt up on the mattress, returning her fevered kisses for a few moments before turning her so that she had her back to him, pushing her onto all fours with a hand between her shoulder blades. She hissed when he thrust back into her cunt, one long slide until he was fully sheathed, and he could not tell if it was in pleasure or pain, or some mixture of the two. But she pushed herself back against him immediately, seeking to press as much of her skin against his with the kind of single-minded determination Sandor had only ever seen her apply to maintaining her courtesies in King’s Landing.

“You feel... deeper, like this,” she gasped as he wrapped an arm tight around her waist to hold her in place, pressing himself all along her back and biting gently at the nape of her neck. She ground back against him, and they both groaned.

“There are other things I can do like this, too,” he rasped, lowering the hand at her waist to the heat between her legs.

He felt her cunt tighten around him as he parted her lips, not even touching her clit yet. She was breathing heavily, sweating, all her layers of cool courtesy and ladylike behaviour stripped away until it left something animal, something beautiful. Something unbearably captivating. He had always been drawn to her, never really understood why, but in moments like this, of which there had been many throughout the night, when she opened her chest and showed him her beating heart... gods, he _wanted_.

She let out a long, low, guttural sound as he finally stroked her hard little clit, practically throbbing with her racing pulse and the force of her need.

“Kiss me,” she whimpered, turning her head, reaching back with her arm to scrabble at the slick skin of his flank, desperate for more contact.

Lifting his arm back to her waist, Sandor hauled her up as he sat back on his heels, her knees settling either side of his, her plump arse in his lap. Sansa shuddered and groaned and lifted her arms to encircle his neck, making her back arch, turning her head once more for a kiss. Sandor obliged, sinking into her mouth with a feeling akin to relief, utterly unfamiliar. His right hand had drifted down between her legs once more and his left now massaged her teat, thumb flicking over her hard nipple, his body thrumming with the need for his release but holding himself still, willing himself to make this last just a little longer.

In the end it was Sansa who lost control of herself before he did, clinging to his neck with her head thrown back against his shoulder, lips parted to draw deep, shaky breaths as she lifted herself up his shaft before slamming back down on him with a breathless, “ _Yes_.” Sandor pressed open-mouthed kisses to her neck, her shoulder, grazing her skin with his teeth, half hoping to leave her marked so that she could not look in her mirror come the morning without remembering him, could not bathe in front of her maids and deny what she had done with him.

“Sansa,” he groaned, barely knowing what he was saying, “little bird. You feel so good, I could fuck you like this every night until I die from it.”

She whimpered, the little noise coming from her heaving chest sounding almost like a sob before he felt her cunt tighten on his cock almost painfully. She seemed to freeze like that, holding her breath, her whole body tensed and trembling, before he held her tight to him and thrust up sharply into her, pushing her finally over the edge. She screamed her release, the powerful contractions of her pleasure bringing him to his own peak, the release so intense it seemed to steal his breath and his wits both.

It was some moments later before he realised he was holding her so tightly it was likely constricting her breathing, but even then it was no easy thing to loosen his grip. She sat there in his lap still, his cock softening inside her, sagging forwards as though all of the strength had gone out of her with her release, head bowed and back rising and falling with her breath.

“Sansa,” Sandor said again, brushing her hair aside and kissing her shoulder. When she said nothing in reply he reached up and turned her face towards him, kissing her mouth gently, stomach filled with that strange, pleasant nausea once more, seeming to expand up through his chest, getting caught in his throat.

And so when she pulled back the slightest of distances, pinning him with that deep blue gaze, breath whispering across his lips, and said, “If I asked you to stay with me beyond this one night, would you agree to it, Sandor?” The only answer he could think to give was, “Yes.”

*

Sansa had always had an excellent imagination, but even under Randa’s tutelage she had never imagined a scenario in which she would peak – wonderfully, powerfully – with tears in her eyes. But it was when Sandor kissed her so tenderly, one hand cupping her cheek, the other spread possessively across her belly, that she realised with a certainty that shocked her that she could not lose him again. And so she asked him to stay with her, filled with a quiet conviction that it was his wish, too. No man could speak to her like that, hold her like that, touch her like that, and _want_ to leave her in the morning.

It was his wish. She near wept with joy when he kissed her once more, slow, almost exploratory kisses, shivering with the echoes of pleasure as he stroked her breasts, her neck, the shell of her ear.

But she did not surrender herself entirely, however she might wish it, because keeping him at her side was only the first of the desires that had flooded her mind in that instant of boldness.

“What is it?” he asked her eventually as they lay facing one another on the bed, close and warm.

“Always remember your endgame,” Sansa murmured, running her hand absently up and down his flank.

“Cyvasse?” Sandor asked, surprised.

“Yes,” Sansa said, smiling slightly, “Except, not really. It’s something that Petyr says, and he means that I should always keep sight of my eventual ambitions, however far into the future they may be.”

“And what ambitions are those, little bird?”

Sansa snorted softly in distaste. “ _His_ ambitions I have told you of already. You and I have put paid to that tonight.” Her mouth twitched into a smile. “But _my_ ambitions...” she paused and drew in a deep breath, bringing her hand up his arm and shoulder, resting finally against his neck on the tender spot just beneath his ear. “I had not thought beyond losing my maidenhead, when I asked you to... to help me tonight, but that need not be my endgame. Sandor, I am tired of being a mummer’s monkey for powerful men. I would take charge of my own destiny, for better or worse.”

“Say what you mean,” Sandor rasped, watching her intently.

“Petyr does not know I am gone,” she said, “and when he realises it he will waste time looking for me. But I do not intend for him to find me here. Sandor, if you help me, we can ride for the Gates of the Moon and we can _take it_. The Royces were ever loyal to the Arryns, and when they hear what Petyr has been doing to my cousin, they will break whatever oaths they have sworn to him and join me in Robert’s defence, I am certain. I am of age now, and Robert loves me dearly – it will be only a small thing to have him declare me his Lady Protector. I can rule until winter ends and Robert comes into his power – we’ll be _safe_ , and I won’t have to stand by anymore as Petyr hurts my cousin and plans my future without me. Oh, Sandor, I really think it would work if I could only get there, but the land between Gulltown and the Gates is treacherous and the mountain clans have been getting bolder since Tyrion armed them – I could not do it by myself.”

“You want to stage a coup?” Sandor asked, his expression hard to read.

Sansa’s heart was beating madly, and she could feel the thrum of his pulse, too, beneath the hand that rested on his neck. “I want to take my life back,” she said, voice soft but forceful. “You promised to protect me, once.” _Please, please say yes._

“Sansa, I haven’t a sword,” he pointed out. “I’ve been living the life of a godsworn brother for the last three years.”

A laugh bubbled out of her, uncontrolled, at his outlandish admission. “I will wake a smith and _buy_ you a sword,” she replied, “and I wager you’ll be happier with a longsword in hand than you ever were singing hymns to the Seven.”

He growled and pushed her over onto her back, looming over her. “Sansa your life is worth _too much_ to place in the hands of a wounded old dog who hasn’t so much as held a weapon since some old septon found him dying beneath a willow tree.”

“ _Then what would you have me do?_ ” she hissed, anger flaring sudden and hot. “Run away with you in the middle of winter? Return to Petyr? My life is worth nothing – _nothing_ – if it is not _my_ life.”

She was breathing hard, her bare breasts rising and falling, and Sandor dipped his head as if to kiss her, though he did not. She felt his manhood swelling against her hip, however, some distant part of her noting that her anger excited him.

When he spoke, the words sounded as though they came hard, as though he was forcing them out against some other, stronger instinct. “Why do you want me?”

Sansa gave him a hard look, unflinching and open, and replied, “There is no one else.”

She waited for him to absorb the meaning of her words, consider the callous meaning and discard it for the fervent one she intended, before she lifted her head to close the small distance between them and kissed him passionately.

“What is your answer?” she breathed when he drew back from her to look her in the eyes once more, an intense, fierce look that Sansa met and returned in kind. _Perhaps I really did take some of his ferocity for myself._

“I agreed to stay with you, little bird,” he rasped. “You already had your answer, before you even asked it of me.”


	4. Chapter 4

Sansa did not know how it made her feel when she heard the news that Petyr had fled the Vale.

“He took a boat from Gulltown, my lady,” Randa said as she stood at the foot of the dais in the Long Hall.

“Good!” Sweetrobin shouted, his reedy voice echoing in the high-ceilinged chamber. “I hope he never comes back!”

“He won’t, my lord,” Sansa assured him softly. “Not for all the rest of his days.”

 _But he did not even give chase,_ she thought privately, astounded. The whole breathless ride to the Gates of the Moon she had been looking over her shoulder, expecting to see Petyr’s men chasing them down. And yet, if this news was to be believed, he had boarded a boat for the Free Cities as soon as it had become clear that Sansa had betrayed him.

 _He knew he had lost,_ a tight, triumphant voice whispered in her mind, marvelling once more at the dam that had been burst the night that Sandor had landed in Gulltown. _Petyr taught me well, and now he fears me._ “As well he should,” she whispered to herself as she nodded at Randa.

The words of the main branch of House Royce were _We remember_ , and though these were not the words of Randa’s branch, they were appropriate nonetheless. The Royces of the Gates of the Moon remembered that it was Lord Baelish who had raised them up, yes, but they also remembered that he had manipulated them into loyalty and Lord Nestor Royce in particular remembered how that had rankled, to be forced into gratitude by an upstart like Petyr Baelish. He remembered very well his oath of fealty to Robert, especially when it gave rise to the opportunity to remove Petyr. And he remembered, eventually, that Sansa Stark was cousin to Robert Arryn and educated in the ways of politics and governance, and that all the bellowing in the world would not make him Lord Protector over her.

For her part, Randa Royce remembered that she had loved Alayne Stone, and Sansa had been left speechless in relief when Randa had swept Sansa into her arms in the same way she had been used to do with Alayne the morning she had ridden up to the Gates of the Moon and revealed her true name.

“Thank you, Lady Myranda,” she said now. “He is a hunted man, then, sought here in the Vale to stand trial for his injury to my sweet cousin, and sought by the Lannisters for harbouring me.”

Randa’s smile was sharp in understanding. “I would not like to be in his position for all the gold in Casterly Rock,” she said.

Later, standing on her balcony looking out across the beautiful moonlit landscape of the Vale, Sansa turned to Sandor and said, “But I fear that I should have dealt with him more... conclusively.”

Sandor watched her, his face half in shadow, leaning his hip against the balustrade with his arms crossed loosely over his chest. “How?” he asked her. “When?”

“I do not know,” she sighed, “but as long as he’s alive, he is dangerous.”

“He’s alone.”

“He bends people to his will,” she corrected. “He twists out of the hangman’s noose. He will find friends wherever he may end up, and I do not think we have seen the last of him.”

“Then be prepared,” Sandor said, “but waste no more of your energy worrying about that man, little bird.”

He was right, of course. There was nothing she could do for the nonce, and her energies were far better spent on numerous other tasks.

“What would you have me worry over, then?” she asked him softly, stepping close. He reached out for her, the pressure and warmth of his hands on her waist and in her hair already feeling so deeply familiar despite the fact that it had scarce been a fortnight since they began their race for the Gates.

“The armed guard on my lady’s balcony with less than honourable thoughts about my lady’s cunt,” he rasped, but despite his crude language he seemed quite content for now to merely stand and hold her close as he combed his fingers through her unpinned hair. Now that she had stopped dying it, her natural auburn was returning, and Sandor seemed endlessly fascinated with the little hints of burnished copper glinting in the light.

“An armed guard without a dagger?” she asked innocently, letting her hand drift down his chest to toy briefly with his swordbelt before letting her knuckles brush lightly over the front of his breeches. “Oh,” she breathed, smiling as she felt him harden, “there it is.”

The hand on her waist tightened delightfully before he growled low in his throat and lifted her bodily onto the balustrade, so that she sat perched and teetering on the freezing cold stone, her face now much closer to his.

“You should not toy with a man’s weapon,” he rasped, and bent to suck a hard kiss just beneath her jawbone. The movement pushed her backwards and Sansa’s stomach lurched as she felt her balance tip too far, heart tripping over itself in the split second before Sandor caught her, strong arms around her back.

She laughed, and buried her hands in Sandor’s hair as he lowered his mouth to the plunging neckline of her gown. “Then why don’t you show me what it’s for?” she said, rejoicing in the heat of his mouth and the feel of his arms around her until she felt she was overflowing with it, and threw her head back to the bright winter moonlight, leaning out over a drop of a hundred feet or more, feeling free and alive and never once fearing she would fall.


End file.
